Rear Nearside Door

October 2003:

As found - 25 years in an open-sided shed on the edge of a wood in a remote valley

The door and door capping will need attention but they will be one of the last things to be tackled.

August 2005:

Taking off the door card revealed that this was the worst door of all.  The thin ply was riddled with worm and had no strength at all.

A close-up of a section of the wood worm - all the plies had separated and it was as strong as a piece of paper!

With no templates to work to, I felt it too difficult to make up the card in one piece, with all the cutouts for the door pocket and awkward curves - so I started at the bottom and worked up piece by piece.

In the end, the door card was remade in three sections, and as the ply was slightly thicker than the original, it is as strong as the original.

The neat winder mechanism allows continuous rotation of the handle and the window goes up and down, up and down etc.  Before and after cleaning.

The door bottom was a bit better than the offside door but not much so a new piece of wood was let in above the original and it was bolted together to make it strong again

The wood below the lower hinge had wet rot and the joint no longer existed.  A piece of hardwood replaced the original wood but needed metal braces to support properly.

Modern materials were used as to replace the wood holding the hinges I would have to have stripped the door into its component parts - beyond me.

The door was completed by fitting a new glass channel - use the clamp with great care!

But the door didn't fit the hole properly - in the past someone had bent the hinge!  The hinge is held to the body by through bolts into the wood door frame.  As the trim was out it was easy to unbolt this end but the door part of the hinge had rusty screws into dodgy wood - left well alone!

The metal of the hinge is very robust and great force was needed to straighten it - in the end I had to use a hydraulic puller!   I wonder how it got bent in the first place ?

At last - the finished door.  It had taken far longer to overhaul than any of the others but I am pleased with the result.